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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that President Donald Trump would be showing pictures and videos of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and would likely hold a primetime address if the administration knew more about it, addressing how some people think the government is covering it up.
Katie Miller, host of "The Katie Miller Podcast," asked Rubio in an interview about a conspiracy theory he believed in, and he brought up UAPs, but clarified he didn't think it was a conspiracy theory.
Rubio discussed how he's been interested in UAPs ever since he was in the Senate, and said, "I don't know who it is. I don't know what it is, but there are things flying over our military installations, and they're not ours, and we should look into this, be serious about it."
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a roundtable on the American mining industry with President Donald Trump at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 7, 2026. (Eric Lee/Getty Images)
"So, I don't call it a conspiracy. I don't know if I — I don't know the answer to any of it," Rubio said. "I'm just, you know, asking the questions about, we should know what's flying over our airspace. But I don't think that's a conspiracy theory as much as it is just — it can be in some sense, because people do believe we're covering something up."
"And I assure you, like in this administration, if we knew, like, the president would be all over," he continued. "Like there would be a primetime address. He would, he'd be showing the pictures and the videos."
The Pentagon has released several UAP videos in 2026.
"President Trump directed the Department of War to identify and release government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and unidentified flying objects because he is the most transparent president in history," White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"While past administrations have sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, the President is focused on providing maximum disclosure to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files," she added. "The American people asked, and President Trump delivered."
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President Donald Trump salutes at the 2026 Patriot Games at SPIRE Academy on Aug. 11, 2026, in Geneva, Ohio. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The Secretary of State also conceded he sometime used UAPs as a diversion tactic while speaking to reporters, but said the topic was nonetheless very serious.
"I did that for a long time in the Senate … It was extraordinarily effective as a diversionary tactic. In addition to — now, that said, it's also a very legitimate topic that we should be covering," he added.
Trump directed federal agencies to waive prior nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) for former government employees and contractors cooperating with unidentified anomalous phenomena investigations in July.
"President Trump recently directed the Department of War and the intelligence community to allow former government employees or contractors that have relevant information about the disclosure of UAP, to come forward to meet with designated government representatives — AARO or the President’s UAP taskforce, ‘PURSUE’ — and have their prior NDAs abrogated," said a senior administration official with the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Pentagon office established to investigate UFOs and other unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
Another senior administration official emphasized the move was not a "declassification directive" and only allowed employees to come forward through government channels.
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President Donald Trump, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L), speaks during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz/AFP via Getty Images)
Officials say years of congressional inquiries, whistleblower allegations and newly declassified records have raised questions about whether additional witnesses have remained silent because they believed prior nondisclosure agreements prevented them from cooperating with government investigations.
Lead UFO Investigator for Gaia and host of "Cosmic Disclosure," Joshua Golembeske, told Fox News Digital in a statement that Rubio was a big reason the UAP report existed, citing his work on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
He criticized Rubio's "diversionary tactic" remarks, and said it was "funny," but that it was the exact thing the Secretary of State was trying to fix.
"This is the same guy who spent years saying the stigma is the problem, that guys won't report what they see because they'll get laughed at. And now the Secretary of State is on a podcast saying he used it to change the subject. Pilots hear that. Witnesses hear that. That's the exact thing he was trying to fix," Golembeske said.
"Where he says if we knew, Trump would be on primetime showing the pictures. Maybe. But that assumes he'd be told. [Intelligence whistleblower David Grusch testified under oath that these programs were kept from Congress — kept from AARO, the office we built to look into it. Rubio himself said whistleblowers came to him scared of retaliation. So 'I wasn't briefed' doesn't mean there's nothing there. It might just mean the compartment did its job," he added.
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Fox News' Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
Hanna Panreck is an associate editor at Fox News.
